A tale of two cases in US “war on terror”: Jose Padilla and Chiquita Brands

In the first, the accused was seized by federal agents at a US airport, vilified as a mass murderer by the US attorney general in a nationally broadcast press conference and then held in solitary confinement without charges or the right to see a lawyer or have contact with family members for more than three years. During this period, he underwent sensory deprivation and outright torture that, his lawyers argue, left him mentally damaged and incompetent to stand trial.

While federal prosecutors now portray the defendant as merely a low-level courier, working for others, they still want to jail him for life.

In the second instance, the individual defendants have never even been named, much less publicly denounced by the attorney general. The sole mention of the ultimate punishment for their crime came in the form of a discreet posting on the Justice Department web site.

The defendants in this second case are part of a major multinational operation and admit to funneling millions of dollars abroad to finance a murderous terrorist organization. Yet they were allowed to reach a pre-trial plea bargain that included as the penalty a fine amounting to 0.55 percent of their annual revenue. The organization that financed the foreign terrorists has boasted publicly that its global operations have not been affected in the slightest.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/chiq-m24.shtml